Twenty weeks – the halfway point!  As expected I feel like the first half of this pregnancy has gone fast.  I remember feeling the same way at 20 weeks with Joe, and then feeling as if the remaining weeks dragged on.  Here’s hoping that life with a toddler will keep me so busy that I won’t be able to think about how much further till my due date.

20 Weeks

It also turns out that my maternal instincts about this baby’s gender were wrong – we’re having a boy!  That’s right, Joe will have a little brother and I will be even more outnumbered than before 🙂  Can’t wait!

Here’s how things have been going since my 18 week update…

Weight Gain

Still don’t know how much I’ve gained, or if I’ve gained any weight at all.  I hadn’t gained any when I checked at 18 weeks.  I tried to check it this week but the battery in our scale has died, poor old thing.

Unlike with my 1st pregnancy, I’m not worried about my weight gain this time around.  It seems that I’m going to follow a somewhat similar pattern to pregnancy #1 – either lose weight or not gain any weight during the 1st and into the 2nd trimesters, and then kick it into gear during the last portion of the 2nd trimester and during the 3rd trimester.

One difference with this pregnancy – I couldn’t wait to get into maternity clothes.  I seemed to go from fitting into pre-pregnancy wear to feeling squashed in my jeans, all in the space of about 3 days once the 16 week mark rolled around.  It was a relief to get on those stretchy waist bands!  Very different from pregnancy #1 where I felt like I had to reach a certain number of weeks before wearing them, otherwise it meant that I was “fat”.  Psht.

Pregnancy Fitness

Could be better, in my opinion.  I walk a lot and push Joe in the stroller.  Even though we have a car at our disposal, I still like to use my own two feet.  I’ve signed up for a prenatal fitness class that begins the 2nd week of January (I’ve mentioned on here before about how Auckland clears out around Christmas, so most stuff, including fitness classes, shuts down).  We’ve also visited 2 different gyms that have child-minding services and are going to make a decision this week about which one to join.  We’re starting a trial at one gym tomorrow, actually.

Appetite, Aversions, and Cravings

I don’t have much of an appetite.  That’s fairly normal for me.  However, I still feel full quite quickly, so I make a point of eating a breakfast with a good dose of protein.  Lunch is usually whatever I’m making for Joe.  Sometimes he and I just share a plate if I’m not very hungry.  Dinner is sometimes skipped or perhaps just the vegetable part of whatever I’ve made for my boys.  The nice thing about being the “head chef” is that I get to make whatever looks good to me, so I’ve been choosing recipes that sound yummy with a decent amount of protein and fibre.

Sleep

I can’t nap in the middle of the day.  I used to be able to before I had children.  Now?  Nope.  I napped a few times during the first trimester but always woke up feeling sick and groggy.  We’re trying to get to bed at a more reasonable hour, but usually it’s 11:30p/12a before I actually fall asleep.  Factor that in with our little morning glory who loves to rise before 6:30am, and you can figure that I’m not getting a lot of shut-eye.  So, we keep working at pushing back that bedtime (for us).  It’s hard to go to sleep though when you know that things need to be done.

Baby Movement

Frequent and more pronounced.  I can feel the movement when placing my hand on my tummy, which is a neat little development.

Pregnancy Brain and Weird Dreams

I haven’t noticed anything personally, but I’m wondering if pregnancy brain can pass from one parent to the other.  If so, then it must have passed to Chris this week.  That, or he’s just being his usual absent-minded-professor self.

Examples?  I made him lunch, showed it to him, showed him where I was putting it in the fridge, and then he took the wrong container the next morning.  When I asked him why, he said that it was the same container (actually not the same – they just looked very similar) and that while the contents looked different and while it was in a different spot, he  figured that I must have moved it and switched around what I’d put inside.  Right – because that makes more sense than him thinking, “I picked up the wrong container”, ha ha!  He’s left his phone at home a few times this week as well.  To top it all off – he put Joe in the bathtub, complete with water and soap, while Joe was still wearing his cloth nappy 🙂

Other Odds and Ends

We have moved up our “return to the States” date.  We had been planning to return during the 2nd week of July.  Now, we’re looking to return during the last week of June.  It wasn’t an easy decision but because of several health scares that one family member has had in the past 12 months, we thought it best to be back sooner rather than later.  The fact that there will be a large family reunion/vacation during the last week of June and the 1st week of July was also a factor.  I’m a little overwhelmed at the thought of traveling with such a little one + then spending a week with extended family while my hormones are all over the place, but I know that it will be worth it 🙂